1. Field of Art
This application generally relates to automated user-level testing of a software application that has a graphical user interface (GUI). More particularly, it relates to capturing and displaying the state of automated user-level testing of a GU application.
2. Description of the Related Art
User-level testing of a software application generally involves treating the application as a black box and interacting with the application from the point of view of a user. Automated user-level testing of an application that has a graphical user interface (GUI) generally involves executing a script that simulates user actions (e.g., activating GUI widgets or entering data). The script sends these simulated actions to the application-under-test, observes the application's responses, and determines whether the responses represent appropriate behavior.
Since automated user-level testing requires no human interaction, the testing can be performed when no one is present. The testing generally creates a test log and stores the log so that it can be viewed later on. For example, many automated user-level testing tools create a screenshot of the application-under-test when the application-under-test crashes and store this screenshot. Later on, a software developer can view the screenshot to determine why the crash occurred. Although the screenshot that was taken at the time of crash is helpful, sometimes more information is needed to enable the software developer to determine why the crash occurred.